Absolutely, the car industry is entering a period of major disruption, both through electricfication, self-driving and ride sharing. My guess is that the demand for the first level 5 self-driving vehicles is going to be insanely high. It wouldn't surprise me, if they could be sold with a profit margin of 100%+, or rolled into a ridesharing service alá uber, where Tesla owners can share their ride, while Tesla takes a nice piece of the pie.
I think there's a correlation, but I have a feeling that it's a late indicator. I think these businesses go out of business after the gentrification, not before it, though it might still be useful.
Every mental task can be reduced to putting 0's and 1's in the right order. However, reducing the tasks to this point isn't really helpful in the discussion. You pretty quickly arrive at a mind bending number of ways to order 0's and 1's, or "legos".
I've seen exponential learner mentioned a few times, but I'm not sure I understand exactly how that's supposed to be understood. It would seem like it's someone who's rate of learning goes up, the more he learns, but I'm not really sure how that is sustainable. Could someone explain me the difference between an exponential learner and someone with a high, linear rate of learning?
Some of the Discworld series, like Small Gods, can be read stand alone with out problems, but I think it's a good idea to read the first book of a main character first. Rincewind, the incompetent wizard, starts with the first book in the series, "The Colour of Magic". My favourite, Sam Vimes, is introduced in the book "Guards! Guards!"
Many shale-oil outfits, spend more energy on retrieving the oil, than the oil actually contains. Oil can be profitable, without being a net energy gain, meaning it's true value is in it's ability to store energy.
Weight is not the primary concern of being in good shape. Being thin, but in bad shape, is almost as detrimental to your health as being over weight and in bad-shape.
I think Musk will keep them separate for now. This pure speculation, but I have the feeling that Tesla is a company Musk will feel comfortable relinquishing control over as it grows, while SpaceX is his baby.
I don't think the challenge of BI is equal to all societies. In a place like Denmark, which has quite the extensive welfare-system, a large part of the BI could be funded simply by cutting out the bureaucracy of the welfare system.
Out of curiosity, are there any areas with a fat rich diet, which has good access to quality health care? It seems most cultures, which aren't based around hunting and gathering, have a carb based diet, as it's simply the most feasible for supporting a large population.
In the talk, Musk says that he plans on selling the ticket, not building the colony. The colony will be a product of the different interests paying to send people to the planet. Who those interests will be is anyone's guess.
I don't think growing food in space is all that important, as long as you can grow it on Mars. You can pack supplies for 80 days, especially if you have an effective water re-usage system like the one on the ISS.
Once on Mars, we could probably use something like this:
The idea of ruining or polluting space is ridiculous. Space is already one of the least hospitable places imaginable, in most of it's forms. What's wrong with exploiting dead space rocks for the sake of all life?
Luckily, there are other pursuits in life than those who generate wealth. I don't think it's reasonable to think, that if humans didn't have to work, they'd all spend their time idly in front of the television.
The benefits of human population control through disease, isn't much of a benefit at all, as child mortality and fertility tends to be correlated. The less chance of your kids dying, the less kids you'll have, in general. This probably means that while we might see a population boom in an adjustment period, we'd probably soon see drops in fertility.
I don't think it's a big problem, as earth mass is already increasing my quite a few tons per day, from comets burning up in the atmosphere. If the asteroids are refined and processed in space, which makes more sense than trying to land them, it should be a non-problem.